August 12, 2006
The Canaanite Woman
The Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, of whom we heard recently in the Scripture readings for daily Mass, is one of my favorite people in the Gospel. As a pagan she fell outside the scope of Jesus’ public ministry (“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” Mt 15:24) prior to the institution of the Eucharist, the Cross and the Resurrection, by which His personal presence and saving grace was extended to the whole world. Still, she is one of the two people (the other being the centurion in Mt 8, cf. the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2610) who caught Jesus’ attention and provoked His admiration by their “great faith.” As in the case of Mary’s intercession at Cana, it seems that this woman’s faith and perseverance moved Jesus to override the boundaries of His ministry and grant her request. How did she do this?
Moved by her deep love for her daughter, and aware of her desperate need (her daughter was afflicted by a demon), she took the risk of approaching Jesus. At first she is ignored in silence (“Jesus did not answer a word,” Mt 15:23), then rebuffed, and finally, it seems, insulted (“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” Mt 15:26). Yet because of her love for her daughter she endured that humiliation and pressed her plea (“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table,” Mt 15:27). She is like some of the great saints of the Church who knew how to transform obstacles into opportunities, and obtain from the Lord, in exchange for their humility and perseverance, holiness for themselves and grace and blessing for others—often for the very ones who were causing them so much suffering, who not infrequently were the members of their own family, religious community or close circle of friends. She also somehow perceived (like Moses, when interceding for the Israelites before God in the Old Testament) that beyond the initial rejection she experienced was the deeper truth and reality of Christ’s compassion.
This nameless Canaanite woman challenges us. How much do we really love others? What are we willing to endure to obtain God’s grace and blessing for them? How deeply do we desire that for which we pray? How intensely do we long for holiness? What are we willing to put up with in order to attain it? Silence? Rejection? Insult? Humiliation?
The deliverance of the woman’s daughter from diabolical harassment is not the only miracle in this account. By her faith, humility and perseverance, the woman herself is transformed from a “dog” who eats only “the crumbs that fall from the master’s table” into a “daughter” worthy to sit at the banquet table and eat “the bread of the children,” surely a reference to the Eucharist.
Fr. Herald Joseph Brock, CFR
Convento San Serafin, Comayagua, Honduras
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